Chapter 7 Lessons Learned:The Power Of Modeling

Modeling the success of others has been one of the greatest skills I have learned which has allowed me to experience so much growth in my life. Since I dedicated myself to rebuilding my life 21 years ago, understanding how to truly follow the lead of others, and avoid costly mistakes is what has made a huge difference between where I was, and where I am now.

Who should you model?

It has been my experience that many people will offer their opinions and advice on the best way to make changes or become successful. But many times we are given information and directions that are in direct conflict with each other and it leads to even more confusion and frustration than an actual solution. Who is the best role model? Who should we listen to? What books are giving us the right information? How can we know who to trust?

I am going to offer you two questions that you can ask yourself whenever you are considering modeling someone. 1) Does this person have anything to gain if I fail? And 2) is this person standing on higher ground?

I had those questions posed to me while working with a huge financial services company in 2000. I was doing some coaching for the leadership team in their regional offices here in New Jersey and had the opportunity to hear a very powerful speaker who came to town for a special meeting with their team (Since this person is no longer with the company, and I have not spoken to him in some time I do not want to use his name without his permission). The topic he was addressing during the meeting was; What is the most important thing to focus on when you are aligning with a person, company, or mission?

He was addressing this topic from two different perspectives. The first was what you really need to explore before you start following the lead of another person. And second, as a leader, what you need to clearly be able to convey to others to get them to “buy in” to your vision.

After the meeting I had a chance to speak with him one on one and he was explaining to me how he chose his role models which he referred to as his “Mastermind Alliance”. I had really been moved by his presentation and wanted to know more about his process and what choices he made in surrounding himself with other successful people.

At one point he said, “Willard, whenever you look to follow someone, when modeling someone and learning from them you have to be willing to trust them completely.” He continued by saying, “When I am choosing a member of my Mastermind Alliance, I always ask myself two questions. One, does this person have anything to gain if I fail? Is there any way that they benefit by not giving me their absolute best? Only if I can answer that question by saying No, this person has nothing to gain if I fail, will I move to my second question.” He then said, “The second question I ask myself is, are they standing on higher ground? Are they more experienced? Do they know more about that specific topic than I do? Why would I want to have someone as a role model who is on the same level, or lower than I am in their understanding?”

Although I would love to believe that everyone has my best interest in mind, the reality is that is not always the case. And sadly, many times the people who are trying to get you to follow them use the tactic of “selling you the dream” when the only person who benefits is themselves. They have become Masters of understanding human behavior and use every tool to their advantage to manipulate others for their own ends. And because they are so good at their craft, many people never realize it until it is too late and the damage has been done.

Even when people truly do have your best interest at heart, they may not be the best people to be your role model. Sometimes the “solutions” they offer can be more damaging than helpful. Have you ever noticed how often well meaning people give advice on things that they have no experience in? And many times, just because we know these people have the best intentions, we blindly follow that advice.

I have to stress this again, if you are going to be modeling someone, make sure that you ask those 2 questions.

There is an important distinction that I also want to share here which is that you need to make sure to apply this principle of modeling where it is relevant. Do not look to your business mentor to be your spiritual role model, or your physical health mentor to be your relationship mentor.

Look at each one individually. Many times what happens is that people put so much value in one area of a person’s expertise they will follow their directions in anything that person prescribes. When it comes to modeling, make your choices wisely.

A Deeper Understanding Of Modeling

When you do find the people you want to emulate, then it is time to start modeling them. To really understand modeling let’s start by giving the term a definition that we can agree on. For the purpose of this conversation we will define modeling as simply a process which allows you to learn from someone else’s experience.

Think about this for a moment, in life there are two ways you can learn things. One is through trial and error which we also call the school of hard knocks. Have any of you ever gone to that school? I personally have my Masters degree from Hard Knock University. It is actually one of my most valued possessions.

The other way we learn is through what I have learned to refer to as modeling. Modeling is a very specific process that I learned through studying and working with Tony Robbins, Richard Bandler and Milton Erickson which teaches you about learning how to accomplish desired results by understanding the organizing principles for success based on someone else’s experiences.

Let me start by asking this; can you learn from the school of trial and error? Can you learn from the school of hard knocks? Of course you can. But what does learning this way cost? Think about it for a moment. What does it really cost when you go out there on your own, with no guidance and learn through trial and error? I’ve asked this question many times in my seminars and the answers seem to be universal. I’m told that people believe that it costs things like time, frustration, self-confidence, feelings of failure and ultimately… money. I believe that it costs all those things and more. I believe that when you are trying to find your own way through trial and error it can cost you your dreams. The reason I say this is because most people do not use mistakes as learning experiences. They use them as references for defining themselves. I have a video dedicated to this topic called “The Only Way We Truly Learn”

When you are trying to succeed at something, there is a better way to approach it. Find someone who has gotten the results that you desire, and model them. In school they called it cheating, but in real world applications I call it smart. If you want to build a successful business, find someone else who has built a successful business and use them as a role model. If you want to improve your health, find someone who has overcome the health challenges that you are dealing with and model them. If you want a more fulfilling relationship, find someone who has a relationship that you admire and learn how to model their approach to a healthy and fulfilling relationship. Apply the process they used to achieve those results and use that process as a tool for modeling their success.

Doesn’t this concept of "modeling" seem like the most logical approach? Think about it. In school we are taught that you had to “figure things out by yourself.” Or that copying off of someone else was a bad thing. But let me ask you something. How much time, energy, self worth, and money could be saved if when we were children we were taught to work together and create solutions as a team? What would happen if as a child we were taught how to effectively model someone so we could learn from their mistakes and successes? How much faster could each person progress in their own journey with the benefit of knowing how to avoid pitfalls? What would happen if we were taught to model the strengths of the other students around us? How much more esteem would we have? How much more could we accomplish in a shorter amount of time?

Doesn’t it seem out of alignment that as parents we tell our children that we want them to learn from our mistakes and we tell them that we are just trying to save them the pain that we experienced in learning x, y or z; but as soon as they start applying the process and attempt to learn by watching other kids and finding out how they do it, we tell them that they are cheating. What a mixed set of signals we are giving our children.

Success Leaves Clues

Modeling was created as a tool by people studying neuro-sciences who recognized that “success leaves clues”. They realized that we all operate with the same fundamental skill sets, and that when you understand the organizing principles you can achieve the same results as someone else. In layman’s terms, modeling is a specific process in which you can learn to achieve a desired result with less effort and less “cost” by truly learning from another person’s experience.

How much faster would you be able to achieve your outcome if you were able to follow a step-by-step map that had been given to you by someone who had actually achieved that specific result before? How much frustration would it save you if you could avoid the mistakes they made along the way? How much money would you save if you didn’t have to fail repeatedly trying to figure out how to make it work?

This is exactly what modeling is about. As I said earlier, success leaves clues. It really is that simple. Success is not hard. And most importantly, success is a process that can be duplicated.

Now many of you are sitting there saying, “But Will, I’ve done that. So many times, I’ve watched the person and I’ve done what they do and I’ve said what they say. But I don’t get the result. They’re successful, and I keep struggling. Modeling doesn’t work.”

I completely respect what you are saying. I know what you are feeling because I used to be there too. So many times I would get frustrated because I was choosing a role model and doing what the person told me to do, but it didn’t work. And I would start beating myself up saying that I was just “stupid” or call myself “a failure.” But what I found eventually was that I was missing some of the key distinctions that would allow me to model their efforts effectively and be successful at “following in their footsteps.”

What I want you to open your mind to now, is that knowing “How” to do something is the least important thing for you to know when you want to model someone. Think about it. Have you ever been in a situation where your back was against the wall? And you didn’t know “how” you were going to do what needed done? You didn’t have a role model to look to. You didn't have the the skills, you had no past experience with the specific situation and you didn’t have any kind of strategy; you just knew that you needed to get the thing done. Maybe your job depended on it. Maybe it dealt with a family member’s health. Again, you didn’t know how to do it, but you knew you “must.”

Let me ask you this. Did it get done? Nine times out of ten the answer I get is “Of course.”

My point is that knowing how is not what leads to success.

Distinction #1

So what are these mysterious “keys” I am referring to that allow you to be successful when modeling someone? There are three distinctions I will share with you right now. If you are going to model someone and you want to achieve the result that they have achieved, do you think it would be important to know what this person believes?

Think about this, no matter what area you were looking to model them in (business, relationships, health, finances etc.), would what the person believes about themselves, about the people they deal with, about the task itself, about the world in general affect “How” they approached it? Of course it would.

Let me give you an example. When I first quit drinking I asked the question, “How do I stay sober?” The answer I was given was very simplistic, “If you don’t take the first drink, you can’t get drunk. So don’t take that first drink.” Direct and simple. But “How could I not take that first drink when I wanted it so badly?” And the answer to “How?” remained the same. Don’t take the first drink.

What was helping these other people stay sober when I kept going back out and drinking again? Even though I had been arrested, lost my friends, my self-respect and everything else I valued the “How” was not enough to keep me sober. One of the missing key ingredients was “beliefs”.

Because of the enormous number of beliefs I now have in regards to drinking I will only give a couple of examples, but I believe that you will get the point I am making as you see how these belief systems would affect my approach.

My beliefs at that time were things like, “Everyone else can drink normally, maybe I will be able to drink normally too someday”, and “It didn’t work last time I tried”, or “I can’t imagine going the rest of my life without a drink. I’ll never be able to do that.”

What I found was that the people who were successful at staying sober had beliefs like, “Alcohol is poison, just like any other poison, it will kill me”, or “I’ve used up my chances to drink like other people. I can never drink like a normal person again.” Another belief was, “I don’t know if I’ll be sober 10 years from now. I just know that no matter what, I will not drink today.” Do you think that I would approach taking that first drink differently if I had the same beliefs that my role models did?

Your “belief systems” determine everything you will ever achieve or not achieve. They will determine what kind of relationships you have, the financial circumstances you will experience and the level of success you will have in both your professional and personal life. Your beliefs will determine what kinds of friends you have, what type of education you get and they will affect the life that your children will ultimately lead. What you believe about yourself, others, and the world at large will determine every decision you ever make and every action you take.

Henry Ford put it in the simplest most powerful terms I have heard when he said, “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.” So simplistic, and yet so true. What you believe will determine the amount and kind of action you will take in any endeavor.

This is the point where people usually say to me, “This all makes sense, but I can’t change what I believe.”

Actually, when you think about it, you change your beliefs every day. I mean really think about it. I want you to remember a belief you used to have, maybe it was when you were in high school, or grade school, maybe even more recently. I want you to remember something that you used to believe in so strongly that you would have defended it to your grave; that now, when you think about it, you would be embarrassed to admit that you used to believe it. Come on, I know you have one. We all do. If you were able to change your beliefs about something you stood behind so strongly, what else can you change your beliefs about? The simple truth is that we are constantly gaining new information and having new experiences that change our beliefs without us even realizing it. And what is even more important… is that we have the ability to “decide” to change them. I have a video on “The Power Of Belief Systems” that goes into more detail.

Let’s face it, many of the beliefs you have you did not choose. Without even realizing it, you have already adopted many of your beliefs from your role models growing up. They came from all kinds of external sources like your parents, other children, teachers, co-workers, television, books, magazines, social gatherings, government resources… and many other influences that you had no control over. And many of the most important beliefs that you have about yourself, are actually untrue.

So often, we have something happen to us and we “chose” to believe what it meant. As an example, maybe when you were younger you made a decision about something that was totally the wrong choice. And based on the outcome you decided to believe that when it comes to that kind of situation, you are “stupid”. When in reality, it may have been that you were misinformed. Why not choose to believe something new about yourself that will empower you to achieve what you are working to create?

I cannot stress enough how important beliefs are, and how crucial it is for you to learn how to explore your own beliefs. As you do this, you will find that you have even adopted beliefs about things without ever having had any physical proof or individual experience to give that belief validity. You choose what to believe in every instance. Ultimately, what you choose to accept as true… will be.

So when you find this person you are going to model, one of the first things you want to do is find out what they believe. Let’s say you are modeling someone who is the top salesperson in your office. Ask them what they believe about themselves, their product, their clients, the economy, and people in general. Ask questions that will allow you to find out what they believe is the most important thing about their sales presentation. Learn as many things as you can about what they “believe”, not so much how they do it. Focus on modeling what their beliefs are.

Understand that your success in this process is going to be determined by the questions you ask your role model. A lot of times when you ask someone about their beliefs, the person is going to tell you “how” to do it. The reason for this is because what they “believe” is a part of a natural process for them. It’s not something that they have to think about. To learn what their beliefs are, ask questions like, “When you think of yourself as a salesperson, what do you believe your greatest strengths are?” Or when it comes to the customers, “What do you believe about the person you are talking to? What is most important to you when you are dealing with them? What do you believe about their needs?” Ask specific questions that get them to think more about what they believe instead of what they do.

Distinction #2

After you are clear on what your mentor believes, then learn the “How”. What is the specific process that they follow? But even more importantly, find out the “syntax” of their process. Syntax means the order in which they do these things. You see most people understand learning the “How” already. But the reason they don’t get the result they are after is because they don’t follow the syntax.

Let me put it this way, even though not everyone has baked a cake, the concept of a cake recipe is pretty simple. In the past, someone successfully baked a cake then wrote a specific set of step-by-step directions for others to follow who wanted to make the same kind of cake. Simple right? So if I were to give you the recipe for an award winning cake, and you followed it “to the letter” meaning that you used the exact same brand of ingredients, you put in the exact amount, in the exact order I told you to and used the exact heat etc. What would you get when you were finished? The answer; an award winning cake. You may not get the optimal result the first time, but you would be close to it and if you continued to follow the recipe to the letter, you would improve each time and finally achieve the result of baking an award winning cake. The key being that you “continued to follow the recipe exactly as it was given to you.”

But what would happen if I gave you the same recipe, and instead of putting in the brand of flour it called for, you put in a different brand. Or rather than a ½ cup of sugar you put in ¾ of a cup? Or what would happen if the recipe called for putting eggs into the mixture on the 4th step, and you waited until after you put on the icing to add the eggs? Would you get the same cake? Of course you wouldn’t.

Now some of you are sitting there saying, “Will, who would ever put the eggs on after the icing?” Hopefully no one… but let me ask you this. How many times in business or other areas of your life, when you are trying to model someone do you do exactly that? Someone gives you the “recipe” for success. They tell you that to get the same result as they get that you need to do A, B, C, D, E, F and G. And you get all excited and go “Alright, great, here I go!” Then as you are getting ready to begin you say to yourself, “You know, that works well for them. But I’m different than they are. I’m going to do it this way. I’m going to do A, D, C, F, E and then G. The heck with B, I can’t do that. That’s something I could never do. This will work just fine.” Does this sound familiar?

This is where the people I am talking to usually admit that they have done this in the past, but start defending themselves saying, “But Will, I AM different. My personality is different. I’m an individual. Can’t adding my own twists make it better?”

Listen, I respect that you are an individual and that you have your own personality. Thank God that we are all different in how we do things. And what we are talking about here is modeling and learning how to achieve a desired result by using another person’s experience. You can add your own twist… afteryou have achieved the result and understand how the recipe actually works.

What you need to understand is the idea behind finding a role model and following their recipe for success is that you save yourself a lot of aggravation and bruises; mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and financial along the way. The moment you begin messing with that recipe, you automatically put yourself back into the school of hard knocks and having to learn by trial and error again.

And there is something much more debilitating that happens when you do this. What happens to your belief systems? You start to reinforce dis-empowering beliefs. Things like, “See, I knew I couldn’t do it.” Or “I knew it. They are just lucky.” We even resort to pointing fingers, “See, I knew they really weren’t trying to help.” And then when it comes time to attempting it again, do we use their recipe? Of course we don’t. We say, “It didn’t work the last time.” When the truth is, we didn’t follow the recipe.

So now you have two distinctions to unlocking the power of modeling. The first, modeling their belief systems. The second, modeling their strategies or “How” they do it. Not only how, but the syntax of how they do it. There is one more key distinction I want to share that you MUST model if you are going to be successful.

Distinction #3

The final key is something I called state management. In essence, this means managing your emotional state. Let’s face it. Sometimes you are not going to be in the greatest spirits and you’ll still need to put on your “game face” and do what you have to do. The difference between the person who is successful at achieving the result, and the one who is not often comes down to this simple distinction. The people who consistently succeed DO NOT just put on a game face. They are Masters of their emotions.

Now I know that many of you are sitting there going, “I was following you up to this point Will. But now you’ve gone off the deep end. Emotions are emotions. How do you expect me to overcome that? I’m doing what I have to, even though I feel like crap sometimes, I still do the job. But if I’m depressed, I’m depressed, there’s no changing that.”

But if you are doing the job and you are feeling like crap while you are doing it, don’t you think that is going to affect the quality of your outcome? If you are in a depressed emotional state, even if you put on a smile, do you think you will really get the same kind of result as you would if you were in an excited or happy emotional state? The people who are really getting the job done don’t just fake a smile. They have learned that you can change your state immediately and have become Masters at doing it.

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever been in a really great mood and something happened and automatically you felt terrible? That proves you can change your emotional state from one extreme to the other immediately right? Ok. Have you ever been in a terrible mood and all of a sudden a friend you haven’t seen in several years calls you on the phone or even shows up; and all of a sudden you found yourself laughing and happy and can't even remember what you were in a bad mood about before? So what would your life be like if you were able to make those kinds of changes happen when you needed to get out of a bad mood for a business presentation? Or to get rid of anger so you could spend some quality time with your family?

How many times have you said something you shouldn’t have to someone just because you were in a bad mood, and then regretted it later? What would have happened if you were able to stop, and recognize that you were in a bad emotional state and rather than walking into your house and yelling at your children for being too loud, or playing in the living room; what would have happened if you could have stopped, changed your state, and walked in being the loving parent you would much rather be?

Well here is the secret. There are two ways that you can change your emotional state. One is by changing your focus, and the other is by changing your physiology which means the way you use your body. Think about it, what happened those times when you were feeling depressed and all of a sudden that friend showed up? You changed your focus. All of a sudden you stopped focusing your thoughts on what was bothering you and focused your attention on the friend. And later on you may have even found yourself saying to them, “You know, I was having a really bad day until you showed up.” But was it their showing up that changed your state? Or was it because you used that opportunity to change what you were focusing on?

Let me ask the question this way. Do circumstances or things going on around you determine the way you feel? Or do you determine the way you feel? The most well balanced people and most successful people I know do NOT believe that circumstances determine the way that they feel. They believe that they do. They live by a belief that says, “It’s not what happens, it’s what you do.”

Now think about what we talked about earlier. If you lived with that new kind of belief, would you respond to situations differently? If your car broke down, would it ruin your day, or would you now have options and choices as to how it would affect you?

Life is still going to give us challenges; it’s all about how we deal with them. I could be in a car accident and I could choose to put my focus on the damage that is done and how my insurance rates are going to increase and how I have to find a rental car and on and on. How will that focus affect me throughout the day? I’ll probably feel like crap. Or, with this new belief I could choose to focus on things like… I could have been hurt a lot worse, or that I at least have insurance, or maybe that the other driver wasn’t hurt, or that the kids that were playing next to the road are ok. I still may not be in the best of moods, but which way of looking at things is going to allow me to deal with it more productively?

So what ultimately determines your focus? Your focus is determined by the questions that you ask yourself. It has been said that the quality of your questions determines the quality of your life. Think about it for a moment, when you ask yourself a question, what happens? You focus on the object of your question.

Your brain is the most powerful supercomputer on the planet, and it also does exactly what you ask it to do. If you ask it to look for problems, it will find them. If you ask it to look for solutions… surprisingly it will find them also. The challenge for most people is that they don’t give themselves enough credit for the potential that they truly possess. By focusing on limitations they end up not utilizing the power that is available to them in a way that serves them.

What is the difference between the person who wins the Masters Golf Tournament and someone who is a weekend warrior on the golf course? In my opinion, the fundamental difference comes down to the questions they ask. The winner asks, “How can I?” when the weekend warrior asks, “Why can’t I?” The Master asks, “What is a better way?” when the weekend warriors asks, “Why doesn’t this way work?” The professional looks to people around him who are more accomplished to be their role model and asks, “How can I become better?” The weekend warrior asks people who are better than him, “Why can’t I play like you?” Each one of these questions will focus you in a specific area.

Changing your emotional state begins with asking different questions. So many people start their day by asking, “Why do I have to do this again?” Or when a problem arises they ask, “What else could happen?” What would happen if you asked yourself a different question like, “How can I really get the most out of today?” Or when a problem came up how much better would you react if you asked, “What is the best solution I can come up with right now?”

Now I want to get something clear here. I am not about preaching that if you think happy thoughts, the world will be a Garden of Eden. What I am saying is that by asking yourself better questions, you can change your focus, thereby changing your state, which will allow you to have better resources to deal with the situation.

I also need to say that just the subject of the power of questions could fill a book itself, so for now I want you to ask yourself, “What are some of the questions I have been asking myself continually that put me in an un-resourceful state?” Now, when you have an answer, explore the ways that you could ask that question in another way that would allow you to better achieve your result?

Just to show the power of changing your focus, let me ask you a couple of quick questions. Take a moment and allow yourself to think of two or three answers for each one of these questions. What are you most happy about right now? If you can’t come up with an answer, let me change the question. What could you be happy about right now? Think about it, there is always something you could be happy about if you allowed yourself to feel happy. When you think of something that makes you happy, ask yourself, what about that makes you happy? What are you most excited about right now? Or what could you be most excited about? What about that makes you excited? What are you most proud of? What about that makes you feel proud? How about what are you most grateful for? What about that makes you feel grateful?

Notice the changes in the way you are feeling as you think about the answers to these questions now? Just by asking yourself a few simple questions you can be in a more resourceful state of mind that will allow you to deal with a situation in a more productive way. But some of you are saying right now, “Will, that’s great, but when shit is hitting the fan, I don’t have time to think of all these questions.” It is a muscle you need to build, just like anything else. You’ll learn. And at the same time, I respect that this will be a new way of thinking. So let’s look at the second way and probably the quickest way for you to change your state. Changing your physiology.

I want to open you to a new possibility, and to do this I need to ask you a couple of questions. Do successful people move differently than other people? Do they carry themselves differently physically than people who are not successful? Why do you believe that is? Almost every time I ask that question in a training session, I get the same answer. Their physiology shows confidence, certainty and strength. Now, here is the “trick question”. Do they move that way because they are confident, certain and strong? Or are they confident, certain and strong because they move that way?

Whether you realized it before this or not, the way you carry yourself physically and the way you feel emotionally are inseparable. Think about this for a moment. If I was to tell you there were someone standing behind you, and you were not allowed to look at them, but they were depressed… could you tell me what they looked like? Where would their shoulders be? Up or down? Where would their head be? Up or down? Where would their eyes be focused? Up or down? Would their breathing be deep or shallow? If you are like most people I know, you got a perfect score on that test and never even had to study.

Why is it that 99% of people, when asked that series of questions, will all answer the same thing? They say, “Shoulders would be down. Head, down. Eyes, down. Breathing shallow.”

It’s simple really. Each one of us is wired with basically the same neurological system. Our physiology and our emotional state are connected in specific ways that create specific reactions based on how we carry ourselves. The reason that 99% of the people answer the same way is because they all need to assume the same physical posture to feel depressed.

I know some of you are shaking your head right now saying, “No way.” But just for a moment I want you to suspend your disbelief and do this small experiment. I want you to look up towards the ceiling, put a big silly grin on your face. Not a little grin, but the big silly kind you put on your face when you are only around people that you can really cut loose and laugh with. Now, I want you to look at the ceiling with that huge silly grin, and… Feel depressed. No, you can’t look down or take the grin off of your face. Keep looking at the ceiling with the big smile on your face, and feel depressed. Get your eyes back towards the ceiling, you aren’t allowed to change your physiology. Eyes towards the ceiling and the kind of smile you make when you are ready to bust out laughing. Now, without changing your smile or head position, feel depressed. You can’t do it can you? There is no way that you can feel depressed in that physiology.

This is where I inevitably am asked, “So what do you want me to do Will, just smile all the time?” Well that would be a start. But in all seriousness, I want you to take a moment right now and think about how you carry yourself when you are confident. Now as you think about how you carry yourself when you are confident, take on the physiology you have when you are confident. How do you hold your head when you are feeling confident? Now, what is your facial expression like when you are feeling confident? I want you to hold your head the way you hold it when you are confident. Put the facial expression on your face that you have when you are confident. Now, how do you hold your shoulders when you feel confident? Put them that way now. How do you breathe when you feel really confident? Breathe that way now. And as you do you will notice something interesting happen. Feel the confidence building. And the more you focus on adjusting your physiology to the way you carry yourself when you are confident, the more confidence you will feel.

You can do this with any emotional state you want. Experiment with it. Find an emotion that would support you in your communications. Maybe you want to be more playful, more loving, or more certain. All you need to do is ask yourself what is my physiology like when I feel “X”? Then assume that physiology. How do you hold your head when you feel a specific way? What is your facial expression like? How do you adjust your body? What is your breathing like? Take on those characteristics and you automatically will feel the emotion.

Now many people will say, “But isn’t that the same as putting your game face on?” I have to say that it isn’t. Unless you consider putting on your game face the process of completely changing your state. To most people, putting on the game face simply means, “grin and bear it”. What I am talking about here is completely changing your emotional state as you enter the process.

What I have found works well as a combination for me is to use my physiology first. As I take on the physical characteristics, my emotions automatically change, which makes it much easier for me to begin to ask better questions. When I combine the two tools, I am unstoppable.

Putting Modeling All Together

So let’s take a moment and review. The three keys to modeling someone successfully are 1) find out their beliefs, 2) find out their strategies or “how” they do it, and most importantly the syntax, and 3) model the emotional state that they go into when they are doing the task. Is it one of certainty? Is it confidence? Compassion? Love? How do they approach it in regards to their emotional state?

Find out these things, and apply them, and I guarantee that you will find you have a much better success rate. For as long of an article as this has been, it really is simple. Find the role model who has gotten the same results that you want to get, and follow in their footsteps. The amount of time and energy you save will amaze you.